Topic
Agency (philosophy)
About: Agency (philosophy) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10461 publications have been published within this topic receiving 350831 citations. The topic is also known as: Thought & Human agency.
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TL;DR: It is argued that, though the term ‘transformation’ suggests fundamental changes to structures for learning and teaching, some of what the authors see is little more than the same thing done somewhat differently.
Abstract: The word `transformation' is frequently used in connection with modern educational change, particularly when such change involves new technologies and `education for the information society'. Closer examination reveals that `transformation' as a descriptor of change is used in a number of ways. In this paper I argue that, though the term `transformation' suggests fundamental changes to structures for learning and teaching, some of what we see is little more than the same thing done somewhat differently. The rhetoric around the role of ICT in the process frequently carries overtones of technological determinism, with agency being ascribed to the technology. Some of these issues are examined in relation to the introduction into schools of interactive whiteboards. Whilst the notion of transformation often carries positive overtones of change `for the better', this implication is open to critical examination. I problematise the notion of transformation itself and draw on activity theory to offer a better understanding of what it may mean. This necessarily includes emphasis on the roles of teachers and researchers as social agents in the process of true `educational transformation'.
73 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the problem of 'historicalizing' international political economy by acknowledging the element of reflection which infuses each level of social inquiry, from how the object of investigation is framed and explored to how agency is considered in relation to particular issues.
Abstract: As a field of study, international political economy suffers from a significant historical deficit. Where this deficit is recognized, it is most commonly addressed by adding 'historical context' to the inquiry, as in the injunction to place globalization into its proper historical context. While this is a useful and necessary first step, it does not adequately address the problem of 'historicizing' IPE. In order to genuinely historicize IPE, we must first acknowledge the element of reflection which infuses each level of social inquiry, from how the object of investigation is framed and explored to how agency is considered in relation to particular issues. This means going beyond context and actors to ask what constitutes the form of knowledge appropriate to uncovering and remaking the social world. Historicizing IPE, in other words, demands that we interrogate our aims and purposes as openly as we explore the subject under study.
73 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the emergence of more sociological and theorised readings of museum computing (what is termed here the cultural turn within the subject's approach), alongside the co-ordinated expansion of research activity in this area, particularly through inter-governmental sponsorship.
73 citations
TL;DR: Self-governing agency has deep moral significance: autonomy is both the source of fundamental rights and the key to understanding what these rights are and what we must do to acknowledge them as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Whether we are writing poetry or constructing arguments, playing sports or baking cakes, we human beings are governed by laws we impose on ourselves. But of all the forms that self-government takes, one has been singled out for special philosophical attention, perhaps because it appears to underlie all the rest. This is the self-governed (and self-governing) activity we call “making up one’s own mind about how to act.” It is generally agreed that our capacity to do this is quite a marvelous evolutionary achievement. Indeed, many believe that being able to determine one’s own will is intrinsically valuable—an “end in itself” whose value does not depend on anything else. For this reason, they say, self-governing (“autonomous”) agency has deep moral significance: autonomy is both the source of fundamental rights and the key to understanding what these rights are and what we must do to acknowledge them. The suggestion that there is a link between autonomy and morality
73 citations
TL;DR: The authors discuss the tension in mathematics between individual initiative and convention, a tension that Pickering (1995) called the "dance of agency" (p. 21), and find that participants resisted the idea of linguistic reference to human agency, although their actual language practice revealed some recognition of human agency.
Abstract: This account of my extended conversation with a high school mathematics class focuses on voice and agency. As an investigation of possibilities opened up by introducing mathematics students to what Fairclough (1992) called “critical language awareness” (p. 2), I prompted the students daily to become ever more aware of their language practices in class. The tensions in this conversation proved parallel to the tension in mathematics between individual initiative and convention, a tension that Pickering (1995) called the “dance of agency” (p. 21). Participant students in this classroom-based research resisted the idea of linguistic reference to human agency, although their actual language practice revealed some recognition of human agency.
73 citations